Isambard Kingdom Brunel: Victorian icon, engineer, artist, architect, designer and visionary, entrepreneur and celebrity. His astounding feats changed the British landscape, and this new book tells the story of his awe-inspiring achievements and innovations as a railway engineer.New to the developing world of railways in the early 1830s, Brunel soon came to rival George and Robert Stephenson, as he embarked on what he called ‘the finest work in England’. The construction of the Gre...

Railway stations were a prominent feature of most towns and villages in Britain until post-war modernisation and closures swept many away. The largest and most imposing stations were in large towns and cities. Among the most impressive were the London termini such as King’s Cross, Liverpool Street, Paddington and Waterloo. They handled and (still handle) millions of long distance and commuter travellers every year. Elsewhere, larger cities like Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow often had ...

The most glamorous trains run by railway companies were the high-speed expresses, linking the major towns, cities and holiday destinations. They included overnight sleepers, fast mail trains, excursion specials and boat trains connecting with ocean liners. These premier trains were the fastest and most luxurious of their day. They generated much publicity, especially in the 1930s when they regularly broke speed records. The names of the most famous expresses still resonate with the public ...

Have you ever watched wagon after wagon of a goods train thunder past and wondered where it is heading, what it is carrying, and how it works its way between the passenger services?While goods services now tend to be shrouded in anonymity, in past times they were celebrated, prominently advertised, and in many cases were the raisons d'être for a rail route. Throughout the nineteenth and much of the twentieth century, goods trains were the lifeblood of the nation, t...

Isambard Kingdom Brunel contributed many groundbreaking features to the Great Western Railway. None was so unorthodox as the decision not to adopt the 'standard' track gauge of 4ft 8½in and instead introduce the new 'broad gauge' of 7ft ¼in.Describing the rationale behind the choice of broad gauge, and also the unique track and locomotives used, this beautifully illustrated introduction to broad gauge railways chronicles the building of the original GWR between Bri...

A brief history of the design and use of railway carriages in the UK, ideal for those interested in railway and social history.Evolving from the horse-drawn stage coaches that they soon eclipsed, railway carriages steadily grew in sophistication so that by the end of the nineteenth century the railway passenger travelled in comfortable rolling stock of a design familiar to many until the 1960s. While modern trains look different from those built more than a century...

Britain's towns and cities were famously transformed in the nineteenth century by the coming of the railways, turning their fortunes around and giving urban dwellers new opportunities to travel across the country – yet the effect on the rural population was arguably far greater. Whilst some of the initial trunk lines were designed to link major cities, the network of smaller cross-country and branch lines that followed opened up large tracts of previously remote countryside, providing new ...